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Google Stadia - "a game streaming service for everyone"

Such a glorious future awaits, where everyone but a handful of data scientists is somehow paying for rent, food, and health insurance on their $1,000 UBI. At least entertainment will be cheap, since it will only be $20 USD a month to enjoy all-u-can-consume "GOOGLE/NETFLIX/AMAZON ENTERTAINMENT CHANNEL," with AI retroactively replacing actors/actresses who have said the wrong thing on Twitter once or modifying textures and models in games to comply with the latest guidelines of the Secretary of Diversity and Inclusion.

Seems like I'm not repeating myself enough because cunts keep acting like we don't have experience of the technology.

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Fucking this. There's no need to make baseless assumptions about latency, because the tech already exists, and it works. It's a goddamn fact that it works. Whether there's a market for it is a different issue. I think there is, if Google play their cards right and their infrastructure is up to snuff. But yeah, maybe not in the US. Time will tell.

Wait, so if this thing uses 20GB per hour, what's the point? You might as well just actually download the game itself then, and that would waste much less bandwith. There are no games worth playing that require a supercomputer and the OMG TEH INSTANT PLEY is just, why do you even need that? Who are these people with eight million different devices to play games (or streams of games) on?

Wait, so if this thing uses 20GB per hour, what's the point? You might as well just actually download the game itself then, and that would waste much less bandwith. There are no games worth playing that require a supercomputer and the OMG TEH INSTANT PLEY is just, why do you even need that? Who are these people with eight million different devices to play games (or streams of games) on?

The argument is that you don't have to download and you don't need any decent hardware to play. Issue is, you will just need a fibre optic connection that is not really widespread in many parts of the world (again, especially America and Britain which both have connections full of suckass outside of NY/California/London) and you can't hope to use anywhere away from home. And if you're at home, why not just play on PC or console?

Because if you're a god damn consoletard or nongaming casual who happens to not live in the boondocks and then there's this big bad new next generation game that everyone's talking about and you want to play but in order to do so you either have to shell out 400-500$ for a console +60-70$ for the game or simply pay 20$ for a few months worth of what -as far as you can tell- is essentially the same thing being streamed to you, what do you think your consoletard self is gonna choose when you've previously not bought a console until years after it launched when it goes for less than 300$/game included and have even gone with digital games over physical just so you don't have to get your spotty fat ass off the shitstained couch in order to switch them?

Most of the reasons why casual gamers flock to consoles over PC (price, simplicity, branding) are the same reasons why they ought to flock to something like stadia over a traditional PS5, if they can.

MS previously experimented with selling Xbox One X's with a payment plan in order to lower the cost of entry, might be their best counter for the consolo-casual market with decent internet stadia is for.

Those console gamers with shit internet will make do with buying traditional consoles, when they can eventually afford them. But just because not everyone has a decent internet connection hasn't stopped online games from thriving either.

I played BB on PSNow and input lag in that game is absolutely a problem. I'm calling fake news.

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It's not like BB doesn't have input lag and frametime issues locally either, and its framerate will often go to shit with more players. And you're talking anecdotal from a different service from a different company. Onlive worked fine for me from what I tested, thus all streams are good?
Reports of google's ACOd streams seemed positive, and didn't see complaints about RE7 and ACOd streams to the Nintendo Switch in Japan.

The argument is that you don't have to download and you don't need any decent hardware to play. Issue is, you will just need a fibre optic connection that is not really widespread in many parts of the world (again, especially America and Britain which both have connections full of suckass outside of NY/California/London) and you can't hope to use anywhere away from home. And if you're at home, why not just play on PC or console?

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While we have fiberoptics in the road, the lines to the houses are copper. Which means it still sucks.

I played BB on PSNow and input lag in that game is absolutely a problem. I'm calling fake news.

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I don't know where you live nor what is your ISP and general internet quality, peering with Sony's datacenter etc.
I don't care what you think, it worked for me well enough to complete the game. Certainly was cheaper to pay that single month of sub $10 than buying the console for the only game I cared about. No need for a PS4.

I played BB on PSNow and input lag in that game is absolutely a problem. I'm calling fake news.

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I don't know where you live nor what is your ISP and general internet quality, peering with Sony's datacenter etc.
I don't care what you think, it worked for me well enough to complete the game. Certainly was cheaper to pay that single month of sub $10 than buying the console for the only game I cared about. No need for a PS4.

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My internet wasnt shite and ping was pretty low, dont care what you think either.
Oh, and besides, one thing I learned during all this is that wi-fi connection is not enough. I sat in the same room as my router and I couldnt play at all, lag was through the roof. Had to use the wire so it would be at least playable. No idea how Stadia plans to make it work with a wi-fi gamepad.

Darth Roxor said:

It’s like the whole video game world is made up of incompetents, narcissists, sell-outs and conmen.

Well, if dev payment is based on time spent in their game, the atrocities in design generated will make input lag a non issue for sure

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This. This is the real kicker at the core of game streaming services. How are they going to monetize it sufficiently? If YouTube is anything to go by, they'll use some sort of metric based around time played to determine how much of the pie publishers get to take home. I'm sure publishers would just love to put an endless stream of skinner boxes in games, with the option of paying real cash to circumvent them. Decent opinion piece from bbc about it:

It’s a trend that feels inevitable - just ask anyone in the music, TV or film business. Streaming is where it's at, and the possibility for what can be streamed has only ever been bound by the limitations of internet connectivity.

Google thinks its technology can make streaming games a plausible and possibly even pleasurable reality. One where gamers aren’t driven to insanity by stuttering gameplay and slow-reacting characters.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume it succeeds. Where might Google - with its track record for upending business models, often with unintended consequences - lead the industry?

Shifting costs
Games consoles are expensive. The games are (mostly) expensive.

Google’s Stadia could eliminate both costs, replacing them with a subscription fee. A ballpark figure might be $15-$30 a month - though some predict big name titles might have an additional fee on top, like buying a new movie on Amazon Prime Video.

Good news? It depends on where you’re coming from.

For gamers, there are a number of hurdles. Phil Harrison, Google’s man in charge of Stadia, told me his team's tests managed 4K gaming on download speeds of “around 25mbps”.

For context, Microsoft currently suggests a minimum of just 3mbps to play “traditional” games online. And the difference between getting 3mbps and 25mbps? Hundreds of dollars a year in payments to your internet service provider.

Or, the difference could be not being able to play at all - 25mbps is more than double the average connection speed across the US, according to research commissioned and part-funded by, er, Google.

Mr Harrison did say he's confident the technology will improve so as to allow play at lower speeds, but that's definitely not a promise.

So - good news games companies, then? History offers a mixed picture.

The big fear will be in succumbing to what has happened to the music industry. Streaming has meant royalty payments have been squeezed so dramatically, even elite musicians can struggle to make a living through record sales. (It's not the stars worst hit, it's worth noting, but the trumpet players to the stars, and so on)

In the TV/movie business, the deep pockets of Netflix et al have meant studios seem more flush than ever, but you wonder how long that can continue. The $15bn Netflix is planning to spend on new content this year is considered by most investors to be wholly untenable.

So that leaves Google, and for Google it is undoubtedly a good move. Without any existing skin in the game of gaming platforms, there is little to lose and everything to gain. Google sees YouTube, where billions of hours of gaming have been uploaded, as just one half of a very lucrative puzzle. Stadia (it hopes) will make up the rest.

‘Microtransactions inevitable'
A bigger question, though, might be how the games themselves may have to change in order to accommodate a new business model if streaming becomes the dominant way consumers access their games.

It might leave publishers bereft of a huge income stream, instead scrapping - with the rest of the industry - for a slice of those $15-30-a-months.

For big publishers, massive reach, and exclusivity deals, might make the numbers just about add up. And for tiny indie developers, with one or two people, that might work well: a huge audience a button click away. But to me, the model shows signs it could leave a very exposed middle ground of medium-sized games makers, whose costs are too high to be offset by the amount of players the title will attract. With many of the most creative ideas coming via these nimble-yet-powerful studios, I worry what an even tougher business model might do.

Now, the wild success and profitability of free-to-play Fortnite, which offers cosmetic upgrades for a fee, shows games makers can make astronomical amounts of money without an upfront cost or overly-intrusive in-game monetisation. But how many Fortnite-esque successes can the market sustain? Two? Three?

If it does indeed go for a subscription model, Google has some important decisions to make about how will dish money out to publishers.

On YouTube, one of the stats that determines how much ad revenue creators get is "minutes watched”. In gaming, "minutes played” could lead to some developers introducing gameplay mechanics that are counter-intuitive to a good time, but vital if they are to gain income.

Or, developers might have to make up the loss of funds by encouraging players to pay for additional items to progress more quickly, in a far more aggressive manner than console gamers are used to today.

The ad-laden, endorphin-pumping, lootbox-peddling mobile gaming industry might be considered the canary in a very miserable coal-mine, here. Paying for a games console, and its games, may not be such a bad thing after all.

The rising tide may raise all ships, but who wants to sail in an ocean of shit? - Lahey

This. This is the real kicker at the core of game streaming services. How are they going to monetize it sufficiently?

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If anything like this ever took off, they would likely use commercials while interrupting your Stream every specific time period (like 20, 30 minutes?). They might also ask people to pay for hours of gameplay e.g. want to play a game for 5 hours or more than 10, you have to pay extra! Also In-Stream purchases - forget the concept of "DLC" and "Microtransaction" fuckery, when a game is streamed to you, the entire game is DLC! "Want to skip that grind or play this particular mission, or enter this dungeon? No problem, PAY US! Want to unlock High Graphics Options and increased resolution? No problem, subscribe to our Platinum Plus service!". Also it would mean the death of Modding, Ownership and various other things.

There's one thing Google (and people glamouring for Stadia) are IMO not taking into account, beside all the technical issues, the console players are very brand loyal, and they're not gonna switch to the new console unless Google really shells out big bucks and buys a lot of exclusives, which I bet Sony and Microsoft will fight for tooth and the nail. They're not gonna get Nintendo's exclusive games, as there's no way they'll let the competitor to get hands on Zelda, Mario and other Nintendo-games. For me this comes off as Google's N-Gage moment, and probably will be a big flop, or what was that Apple's console called, Pippin? which was dead on arrival?

Sony will have the best exclusives once again, because they are the ones with turn-based jrpg companies, and most likely PS5 at launch will be once again the top hardware available at the moment for consoles.

TLDW: The input lag is around 166ms. Compared, even a wired Xbox controller on a console only has 15ms of lag. The wired controller has even much less.

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You didn't include the video lag, which more of a problem than controller's. 60fps game will have at least a 50ms lag by definition.

Stadia could actually minimize it if cloud servers render games at 240fps for example, which is 12 ms lag. Then there will only remain a ping lag. So even with 100ms "ping"(it is roundtrip already, so you don't need to multiply further) you'll have a comparable lag to 30fps games, which console games are so accustomed to. Of course they need their codecs to be quite fast, so they don't introduce an additional lag. So, speed of light or not, they could make it happen. 100ms ping means you need server
10000km away. Pretty doable, I guess.

I think the issue is that input lag and every other source of lag will be added to video lag, they aren't mutually exclusive. Input lag will always feel worse than an occasional stutter to me as well.
240FPS rendering is highly optimistic, I doubt it could get a stable 120 FPS in any AAA game at comparable settings to a PC with a Vega 56 card and a decent Intel i5 or i7 from the last 2 generation which is what Stadia most closely resembles. Stadia also begs the question on how often they intend to upgrade the hardware. It's on the tier of a good gaming PC today, but what about next gen? Next gen consoles will very likely be an AMD Navi GPU based design, and with 7nm on their side they could exceed the current specs of the Stadia. Stadia has the benefit of multiple GPUs, of course, but that's more headaches for developers.